Played by the talented Mariska Hargitay, Olivia Benson has been a staple of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit for almost thirty years. It premiered in 1999, and Benson is still an important character on the show. Through the decades of being on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the show has explored and expanded her character arc in each season, giving the character multiple transformations. Hargitay always played the character with grace, realism, and complexity.
What makes Olivia Benson’s character stand out in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit isn’t just the fact that her character has starred in so many episodes. It’s the fact that she can relate to the victims she helps and the fact that she is always empathetic. Working her way to the Special Victims Unit in the show, she always demonstrated that she was rooting for the victims that she was helping. Her partner during most of the show, Elliot Stabler, had more of an angry attitude, seeming like he needed to avenge any victims within the show. Their dynamic provided an even balance. Given Benson’s dark upbringing, it’s quite empowering to see how she fights for others.
Olivia Benson’s Life Starts Tragically, and She Uses It to Better Herself
Benson was born in 1968, on February 7th. When Law & Order: Special Victims Unit explored her origins, it helped unpack her motivations for working so closely with her cases.
In the first episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Benson is dealing with a case related to a war criminal and serial rapist who was murdered. As the episode unfolds, Benson’s nerves slowly get shorter. As she confides in her mother, she admits to her mom that she wishes she was in the car with the suspects in the murder.
It is made clear that Benson’s mother was raped and Benson was conceived because of it. At the end of the episode, the suspects are arrested but given less time than expected, given the fact that they were victims themselves of the person they killed.
In season eight of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, in the episode titled “Florida,” Olivia Benson works on a case related to a girl whose father abused her. This uprooted some trauma for Benson to unpack, as she had a strained relationship with her father. He was almost never present and didn’t stick around after he raped Benson’s mother. It w asn’t until later that she even found out her father’s name when he tried to contact her. He had started a new family and moved on from his horrendous ways of being a serial rapist. In the following episode, Benson finds out that her father died by suicide, further complicating her feelings for the father that she never had.
Benson never used her history as a deterrent to pursuing bigger things at work. She only used her past to push forward as and help as many people as she could. If she had the chance to prevent what happened to her mother when she was young, she would go above and beyond to do so.
Olivia Benson’s Story Arc Grew Over 25 Years as She Encountered Trauma on and off the Job
In Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Benson starts as a Detective and works her way up the hierarchy of the police precinct. At the show’s start in 1999, she was 31 years old.
Before the show begins, around 1992, Benson’s character starts off as an NYPD officer. She became a detective in 1998. As of 2024, she is the Captain of the 16th precinct within the Special Victims Unit. Her promotion to the position was at the beginning of season twenty-one. Olivia Benson’s current age in the show is 56 years old.
Benson’s career had many ups and downs along the way. While she always put her cases before herself, they brought her close to harm’s way. In season nine, in the episode “Undercover,” Benson goes undercover to try to find a guard who raped a woman. In doing so, she comes dangerously close to being raped by the suspected guard. This is easily one of the darkest episodes of Law & Order: SVU. The repercussions of the sexual assault loom over Benson in the tenth season, causing her to act out and behave more aggressively than usual.
In season fourteen of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Benson is kidnapped by a serial rapist and murderer by the name of William Lewis. In addition to torturing her for days, Benson once again is almost raped. Luckily, she breaks free from William, but she forgoes police protocol, beating William within an inch of his life. This was another shocking moment in the show, as the audience had never seen this side of Benson. Her aggressive reaction was caused by a combination of the taunts by William as well as her PTSD from previous similar moments in her life. This moment, of course, affected Benson deeply, leaving her shaken for many episodes to come.
Benson and Stabler Are One of the Best Cop Duos on Television
In Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Benson and Stabler have a complicated relationship, but a close one nonetheless. Even when they butt heads, they are loyal to each other and strong partners throughout the series. In season one, in the episode “Stalked,” Stabler takes it upon himself to chauffeur Benson around. She doesn’t necessarily feel the need for him to do so, but she lets him do it anyway. He asks her to turn the light on in her apartment to let him know that she’s made it safely into her apartment. Knowing that Stabler will stake out her apartment all night if she doesn’t do it, she humors him and turns the light on. The care that they’ve had for each other since the start of their partnership sticks around throughout the entirety of the show.
In season nine of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Stabler’s wife, Kathy, is involved in a car accident while pregnant. The crash was life-threatening and caused the detectives to think quickly on their feet. Without giving it a second thought, Benson helps deliver Kathy’s baby, given the risky circumstances. After a successful delivery, Stabler gives Benson a heartfelt hug, the first hug between them on the show.
In season twelve of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Stabler decides to leave without letting Benson know, leaving her a little heartbroken. While their relationship was never intimate, it has come close. In season twenty-four, they come dangerously close to kissing, and in season twenty-five, Stabler leaves Benson a voicemail saying that he just wanted to hear her voice. While there were a handful of will-they-wont-they moments between them later on in the series, their compassion and allegiance towards each other were never compromised.
In Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Mariska Hargitay has always played her character with grace, empathy, and an understanding that she is an inspiration to many women. Fans look up to the strength and resilience of Olivia Benson, sticking by all that she stands for. Through thick and thin, Benson has consistently been an empowering role model. The arc of Benson is widely regarded as one of the best feminist stories in television.
Hargitay doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, telling E! Online:
I trust that the future will be right and that I will be where I’m supposed to be. I’m very engaged and fulfilled at SVU right now and there’s definitely things that I want to do and achieve challenge myself with.
As one of the longest-running procedural shows, it seems as if the audience will have plenty of Olivia Benson to look forward to.
